China Meiguo

During my recent trip to China with Belmont University's summer study abroad program, we got to spend 4 days in Tibet and on one of those days, we took a 4.5 hour, very bumpy bus ride trip to Namtso Lake (aka Nam Co; Chinese: 纳木错; Nàmù Cuò; English: Heavenly Lake). It was worth the trip since the lake, which is the highest salt water lake in the world (4,718 m), and its surroundings, offer some spectacular scenery.

Next month (late August), I'll be moving to China to teach at Florida International College (FIC) of Zhengzhou University so I've decided to start blogging again about some of my experiences. FIC is a partnership between Zhengzhou University and the University of Florida which began in 2007. I'll be there for at least one year and am looking forward to teaching in China, but have a bunch of things to try to take care of before leaving the U.S. (moving internationally is no simple task).

I also spent part of this summer in China with a summer study abroad program from Belmont University (as well as doing some traveling in Thailand, the Philippines and Hawaii). The Belmont groups spent 3 weeks in China visiting Beijing, Zhengzhou, Luoyang, Xi'an, Tibet and Shanghai. It was a great trip and I'll post more about it in future. For now, here's a few photos.

Google, the world's most popular search engine, has had a troubled existence in China, but is still hanging in there to some extent after being given a reprieve of sorts from the Chinese government. While Google dominates the online search business in the U.S. and much of the world, it has been a distant second place in the world's most populous nation.China's leading search engine Baidu is known, among other things, for providing links to lots of unauthorized online music. However, since Baidu merely links to, rather than providing the unauthorized music files, it is not liable for the resulting copyright infringements under Chinese law.

In an effort to compete with Baidu, in 2008, Google introduced a free legal music service in China.The Google Music service is an innovative experiment in an attempt to convert illegal downloading to legal downloading. The music service is operated by Chinese Internet music company Top100.cn, owned in part by NBA basketball star Yao Ming. Top100.cn secured licenses from record companies and music publishers to offer their songs and recordings for download in China. Mainland Chinese Internet users can therefore legally download a huge variety of music for free although Google and Top100.cn hope to eventually make the venture profitable through online advertising (which has so far proven not to be a profitable business model for most music websites).
Google's China operations took a major turn for the worse in March, 2010, when it publicly announced that it would no longer comply with Chinese censorship regulations for online content. However, instead of totally giving up the the Chinese search engine market, Google simply rerouted users in mainland China to its Hong Kong website (although Hong Kong is part of China, it is largely self-governing and therefore not subject to mainland China's censorship regulations).
While rerouting searchers seemed like a clever solution, the Chinese authorities indicated that this still violated Chinese law and that Google's Internet content provider license (which allows commercial websites to operate in China) might not be renewed as a result.In response, Google recently started merely providing a link to its Hong Kong webpage instead of automatically rerouting Chinese Internet searchers. It appears that this change may satisfy Chinese authorities which indicated today that Google's license will be renewed.

Interestingly, in addition to providing a link to its Hong Kong search engine, the google.cn page also provides a link to Google Music which is still operational in China. Despite all the problems Google has experienced, it seems that it is not yet willing to give up on the Google Music service and has accordingly made an additional investment in Top100.cn. Chinese media have reported that both Google and Yao Ming have invested in a second funding for Top100.cn.

Although its impossible to know how all this will turn out, Google's music service is still hanging on even though Google's main incentive in offering the music service (gaining search engine market share in China) has been seriously diminished. Google may hope that if its music search service ultimately becomes profitable in China, it can be introduced in other parts of the world as well. As with most online music business ventures, continued existence is iffy and profitability is only something that can be hoped for in the future.

James Clavell was a British author who wrote several novels set in Asia (Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore). Clavell’s interest in Asia was sparked by his actual experiences. He joined the British Royal Artillery at age 16 and fought the Japanese in Malaya where he was wounded by machine gun fire, captured and became a prisoner of war at Changi Prison in Singapore. This could not have been a good experience since Changi was notorious for poor living conditions and the brutal treatment of prisoners by the Japanese. Its therefore somewhat surprising that Clavell’s novel’s generally portray the Japanese in a positive light, especially the samurai culture portrayed in Clavell’s most famous novel, Shogun.

In 2006, I visited several cities in China as part of a summer study abroad program with Belmont University. One of the cities we visited was Nanjing, an important city in many parts of Chinese history. One of the darker parts of its history occured when the Japanese invaded in 1937 and brutally massacred several hundred thousand Chinese residents which became known as the Nanking Massacre or the Rape of Nanjing (the title of the book by Iris_Chang). I was shocked, not only by the atrocity itself, but also by the fact that I'd never really heard much about it and didn't realize the extent and exceptionally barbaric nature of the Japanese troops which rivaled if not surpassed the worst atrocities committed by the Nazi's. None of the American students in our group had heard of it at all which seems to illustrate the overly Westernized version of history in the U.S. education system.

The German/Chinese co-produced film, The Diaries of John Rabe was shot in Shanghai as well as Nanjing and features an international cast including German actors, Steve_Buscemi (playing American doctor Robert Wilson), Chinese star Zhang Jingchu and Japanese actors Teruyuki Kagawa and Akira Emoto. It was released in 2008 in Germany and China, but to my knowledge hasn't made it to the U.S. There are several other films dealing with the Nanjing massacre so it looks like this chapter of Chinese history may finally get some more international publicity.

I came across this article which discusses the recent success of some Chinese peer-to-peer (P2P)file-sharing services. In the U.S. successful lawsuits by the music and film industries have limited the ability of companies to profit from operating P2P services whose existence is based on encouraging illegal "sharing" of copyrighted music and movies. On the other hand, some Chinese P2P companies are attracting venture capital and advertising income. Although China's laws on copyright are similar to those of the U.S., penalties or damage awards are usually very low. Consequently, P2P companies can take the risk of being sued and, even if they lose, treat any resulting damage awards as a cost of doing business.

Screenshot of Tudou video sharing site. Tudou was found liable in one lawsuit against it and ordered to pay RMB 50,000 (U.S. $7100) in May, 2008 (see this article). Apparently (after the lawsuit?)Tudou started partnering with some content companies to offer content legally in return for sharing advertising revenue.

I don't think there's any doubt that P2P is a viable method of distribution for TV shows and other content and, when done illegally as described, certainly quite profitable to the companies facilitating the illegal conduct. If this can be done in a legal manner with content owners (and authors) getting a share of the profits, that'd be a much more equitable arrangement. However, if they can get away with illegal distribution and profit to a greater extent by doing so (by avoiding payment to content owners), there doesn't seem to be much incentive for legal P2P distribution. The article doesn't mention whether any Chinese P2P companies have tried to negotiate deals with content owners, but I why would they if they can make much more money operating illegally without serious adverse consequences even if they are sued? Even though damage awards tend to be very low for copyright infringement in China, it seems the only way to force business to start operating legally is to sue them (just as it has been in the U.S. and elsewhere).

Dr. Ming Wang forwarded me a link to a New York Times article which reports that the Chinese government has announced a plan to institute universal healthcare by 2012.

China Announces Subsidies for Health Care

By EDWARD WONG


BEIJING — China announced Wednesday that it intended to spend $123 billion by 2011 to establish universal health care for the country’s 1.3 billion people. . . Xinhua, the state news agency, said the authorities would “take measures within three years to provide basic medical security to all Chinese in urban and rural areas, improve the quality of medical services and make medical services more accessible and affordable for ordinary people.”

The article indicates that the Chinese government might be doing this, in part, to stumulate its economy by encouraging Chinese to spend more. Since many Chinese have little or no health coverage, they tend to save a large portion of their income in case they need it to cover medical expenses which, although still cheap compared to the U.S., are rising rapidly in China.



Its a bit ironic that China, with a 1.3 billion population and a smaller economy than the United States, is at least aiming for universal healthcare while the U.S. has so far been unable to do so. Of course, the U.S. population are not big savers so the security of universal healthcare isn't likely to result in increased consumer spending as China is hoping for. However, I think there are other very good reasons that the American healthcare system needs substantial reform. Maybe we can follow China's lead on this one.


Or maybe, Americans will just have to start going to China for cheaper medical treatment.

A short article from Variety Asia Online says that the mainland China movie industry had an increase of 27% in box office revenues for 2008 (worth about U.S. $622 million). Chinese films were responsible for slightly more than 60% of that income according to the China Film Bureau .

The biggest grossing film in China last year was Red Cliff, a historically-based epic about the Battle of Red Cliffs in ancient Han Dynasty China. The film made U.S. $45.3 million in China and over U.S. $102 million worldwide. Red Cliff also has the distinction of being the most expensive Asian-produced movie with a budget of around U.S. $80 million.



Other top grossing films were CJ7, Painted Skin, American-produced The Forbidden Kingdom, Kung Fu Dunk, If You are the One and Forever Enthralled.

Interestingly, increasing numbers of Chinese people are going to movie theaters to watch movies even though pirated DVD copies can be easily and cheaply purchased. This is probably due to the fact that as China's economy has grown, more people have disposable income and are willing to pay more to see a movie in a theater for the entertainment experience (going-out, group-oriented activity) rather than watching pirated copies at home.

One thing I've noticed in my travels is that every country seems to have its own American Idol type TV show. China of course is no exception which has its incredibly popular Supergirl show which started in 2005 which was reportedly watched by more than 400 million Chinese fans. Apparently, the show has since suffered some problems (see this article).

One of the problems for Chinese singers in developing any recognition and success in the U.S. and elsewhere is of course the language difference. Jane Zhang (Zhang Liangying - 张靓颖), one of the Supergirl Season #2 contestants may have a good chance of doing so due to her Mariah Carey-like voice, attractive looks and ability to sing in English. Ironically, although her choice of English songs and a Spanish-language song in addition to Chinese during the Supergirl competition impressed the judges, it may have alienated some of the Chinese voters who voted (by text messaging) for Li Yuchun.

Zhang's first album, The One, includes 3 songs in English as well as 7 in Chinese. I've listened to it and although its good, it may be a bit overproduced and doesn't seem to show off her vocal talents fully. On her 2nd album, Update, Zhang takes some risks by veering a bit away from tandard Chinese pop and experimenting with R&B and a little jazz.

Zhang is known, among other things, for her vocal range - from D below middle C to G above soprano C, as illustrated by her performance of Minnie Riperton's 1974 hit Lovin' You on the Super Girl show (see video below)



Here's a video of a live medley performance including Don't Cry For Me Argentina.



And, a Chinese song with a little hip-hop flavor:



One thing I can say for sure is that Ms. Zhang has more talent than anyone I've seen on that annoying America's_Got Talent show that they play here in Hong Kong. If that's really the best talent America's got to offer, I'd vote for Jane and I'm moving to China.